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Re:Mark in the Middle by sjg007 on Thursday September 24, 2020 @09:34PM (#24585713)
I think you are wrong. Almost all Americans want police reform for example.
Re:Mark in the Middle by crocodiletears on Thursday September 24, 2020 @09:41PM (#24585745)
'Want police reform' and, 'want leftist-espoused police reform' are two very different things.

Just because the majority of a population support a given policy abstract doesn't mean that the gamut of their potential demands doesn't span the entirety of the political spectrum.

Re:Mark in the Middle by sjg007 on Thursday September 24, 2020 @09:48PM (#24585781)
I don't really get your point. People need to vote and all of this pedantry will go away.
Re:Mark in the Middle by crocodiletears on Friday September 25, 2020 @02:53AM (#24587227)
My point is that police reform isn't exclusively a Lefty issue. It's the domain of every political interest group suspicious of the state's use of power.
Re:Mark in the Middle by krapp on Thursday September 24, 2020 @10:17PM (#24585942)
> 'Want police reform' and, 'want leftist-espoused police reform' are two very different things.

Not really. The reform that most Americans want is premised on the belief that racism and violence against African Americans are systemic issues in policing which need drastic measures to solve at best, or a complete dismantling of the system at worst.

The right either refuses to accept that such problems exist, dismissing them as fabrications by the left, or justifies them on the basis that African Americans are endemically violent and lawless, and deserve the brutal treatment and suspicion they receive.

The only 'reforms' the right wants are to give the police more guns and for them to not be held back against certain "problem" demographics by "political correctness," but the reform most Americans want is entirely leftist in its assumptions and goals.

Re:Mark in the Middle by crocodiletears on Friday September 25, 2020 @02:52AM (#24587216)
You've clearly not heard a conservative or a libertarian rail about no-knocks, mandatory minimum sentencing, drug laws, or civil asset forfeiture.

Large elements of the right often refuse to accept systemic racism, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its own critiques against policing that make the abstract statement 'I support police reform' valid for them.

Outside the left and the far right, although moderate liberals acknowledge the existence of systemic biases in policing, I've heard proposals ranging from 'remove qualified immunity', to 'more training', to 'expand social services', but typically with the caveat that 'my poufs Dept is fine', or 'I don't want social workers to replace any of the police, I just want them in addition to the police'. There's usually a big fat asterisk alongside the suggestion that requires a positive sum outcome where nothing really changes in their lives, but everything is abstractly better.

Re:Mark in the Middle by smsm42 on Friday September 25, 2020 @04:56AM (#24587937)
"Police reform" means very different things to different people. To some, it means replacing cops with social workers, to others, it means giving them enough manpower and training budgets to be more efficient. Both are reforms, but very different ones.